When shooting photos or videos, it’s always important to nail down your lighting. You have to know where you want your light, but more importantly, where to remove light.
That’s where barn doors come into play. Barn doors are designed to control the direction and intensity of your light by narrowing or widening the beam.
This allows you to direct light to certain parts of your scene or subject and draws your viewer’s eye to the intended parts of your image, creating truly dynamic lighting effects.
Whether your barn doors are made for big lights like our Studio Panel Lighting Kit or small lights Like the Lume Cube 2.0, they will consist of 4 flaps that can be adjusted to control the shape and direction of light.
In the video demonstration above, we use the barn doors on our Studio Panel Lights. To start, we clip the barn doors onto the studio panel light.
Next, we adjust the flaps of the barn doors to control the direction and spread of light. You can open the barn doors to create a wide beam of light or close the flaps to create a narrow one. You can also angle the flaps to direct the light in a specific direction.
Another advantage of barn doors is they allow you to create dramatic lighting effects. In the video above, we use the barn doors to create a spotlight on the model’s face and create contrast with the dark background.
Using barn doors is an easy and effective way to control the direction and spread of light. Now its your turn to try! Experiment with different angles and configurations to create the perfect lighting setup for your next shoot.
